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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful true-to-life tale,
This review is from: Hunting and Gathering (Paperback)
Hunting and Gathering is a novel where people are the story. There is no bombastic action or elaborate plotting. It is simply the tale of a group of people all suffering from our common affliction: human frailty. Significant past events are relayed by the characters in their own unadorned words and the novel is all the better for it. It has all of the beauty, all of the tentative nature and all of the base human fear and stupidity that characterize life.
My favorite character was Philibert. An unpretentious intellectual with an enormous inferiority complex, he is also the simplest and kindest of the main characters. I loved his sincere and deep-rooted sweetness and tenderness. I think Gavalda also uses him to make something of a point; that strange person that so many of us do our best to avoid may be one of the best human beings we could ever hope to meet. Camille is nicely drawn as a woman most afraid of her own wants and needs. She can be highly irrational and irritating but she's always sympathetic because she acknowledges her own flaws and doesn't try to justify them. I loved the vivid descriptions of her drawings. Gavalda phrased them so beautifully that I could see the drawings and paintings in my mind's eye. The character I found most surprising was Franck. He was initially so unlikable and. once again, Gavalda doesn't try to pretty up or excuse his behavior. There are reasons for it but not justifications and Franck grows a lot over the course of the novel. He's something of a foil for the other two due to his noisy and dramatic initial decline--a great contrast to the gentleness and passivity of Camille's and Philibert's. Paulette was a rather more interesting character than I expected and a late revelation about her past paints a very detailed portrait of her as a woman. Gavalda is a very gifted writer and the translation of her work was nicely done. I found her work to be exactly like her characters: beautiful in its simplicity. Her writing is so beautiful and her characters so real and though the work has a great deal of import, the reader never feels as though Gavalda is boasting of its import. This was a truly lovely novel.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating,
By
This review is from: Hunting and Gathering (Paperback)
Fun, captivating story about three otherwise isolated Parisians tied together sharing an apartment, who are eventually joined by one of the character's aging grandmother. Poignant insights into the basic social breakdown, and heart-warming praise forthe triumph human compassion and kindness.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite Simply an Amazing and Remarkable Book. . .,
By
This review is from: Hunting and Gathering (Paperback)
I don't know how else I can describe this book except to say that I disliked absolutely nothing about it. Except that it had to end.
These last few weeks have been enjoyable, and thought provoking, getting to know these strangers as they met and came together, all of them sad and yet hopeful in their own ways. The Parisian setting had its own appeal, but that was not the story. The story was these characters, their journeys and growth. The story came alive through these characters and their ability to continue existing and enduring. I felt happy and hopeful upon finishing their story. I'm only sad that it had to end. Even before I started reading, I had the feeling that I would really love Hunting and Gathering. And I was right. I believe it very quickly joined the list of my all-time favorite books, one that I will gladly read again in the future. Anna Gavalda has a great talent that truly took me by surprise, and I look forward to reading her other novel and short stories. Hunting and Gathering was a journey well taken and one I will encouragingly recommend to others.
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